They would form no brotherhood of virtue until driven to it by a brotherhood of vice.
1848 San Francisco. Lola Moreno has found a home at last, saved from destitution by businessman Gage Lassen. Gage is a withdrawn bachelor, and the most intimate subject he’s discussed with Lola is his preference in tea. Adventurer Harrison Bancroft arrives, fresh from years on the Plains living with Indians. Gage can only admit affection for another man, and things heat up when Harrison paints his portrait.
Harrison and Lola can find no way to allow Gage to participate in their love until Harrison unlocks the pain from Gage’s past, allowing him to emerge from his prison of cold restraint.
Corrupt enforcer Fowler threatens the trio with seeming knowledge of their private vices, harassing Harrison with his unwanted attentions, and a night of riots forces them to make a stand.
Three lovers, one destiny.

Note: Each book in series is a stand alone and can be read out of order.

“I have.” After Lola flung her rebozo onto the back of a chair, Harrison could admire the play of dappled sun across her bare shoulders as she worked the dough. Her voice, however, seemed resigned and flat when she said, “I can sell a pint of milk for a dollar to men who haven’t had any in one or two years. And these pies? I can sell fruit pies for a dollar apiece—mince pies for a dollar and a quarter.”

Harrison thought. He supposed it was wonderful that Lola was so enterprising, instead of sinking into the squalor that so many broken frontier women gave in to, but it was also pitiful that Lassen didn’t pay her enough—that a woman of such talents and background had to slave away stoking a fire and chopping apples when she should be…Well, the wife of a dignitary, or some other man of means, such as a lawyer.

However, pie and a glass of milk did sound good. Harrison knew a passel of men who would well-nigh whale into someone for a chance at pie and milk.

“And Lassen lets you keep the income, even though the cow’s on his land?”

“Surprisingly, yes. I use my own money for the ingredients and firewood, and I only make pies when I’ve done all the chores Lassen has set for me.” She suddenly stopped rolling out the dough. Her head sank down on a weak neck as though defeated in something, and Harrison stopped chewing the orange, taking a few steps toward her. When she inhaled a ragged breath, it all came out in a rush. “I get up, make coffee, then I make biscuits, fry potatoes, broil three pounds of steak and as much liver as I can. Then I sweep and set the table, ring the bell at eight, he is eating until nine, I don’t sit until he’s done. After breakfast, I bake six loaves of bread, then four pies or pudding, then it’s lunch, lamb for which I’ve paid nine dollars, beef, pork, turnips, beets, radishes, and that everlasting damned soup every day. For tea he has hash, cold meat, bread and butter, sauce, and some kind of cake. I make his bed every day and do all his washing and ironing, if I didn’t have the constitution of a horse I should have given it all up a long time ago, andhe doesn’t even say good day to me.”

Harrison was shocked into silence by this sudden outbreak. He’d known she was disenchanted with Gage Lassen, but he thought she scorned Lassen and trivialized his cold treatment of her. Now it appeared that it upset her greatly. Accustomed to the fluid, warm ways of the Plains Indians, Harrison took Lola by the shoulders and turned her to face him. Yes, a tear dripped down each cheek, and she miserably looked aside at the floor.

“Lola. Meha. Dear heart. I don’t think it has much to do with you individually. Listen to me. He’d be the same cold way if it rained tadpoles and pennywinkles. That’s just Lassen’s way. I’m starting to suspect that it has something to do with that wife who threw him over.”

“I thought so!” she blubbered, finally meeting his gaze, although she shied away from his grip. “But he treats society women with deference.”

“That’s society women, wives of his friends, meha! Of course he has to bow to them on occasion. But have you noticed, as I have, that he virtually ignores every single shopgirl, laundress, every woman who passes on the street? It’s as though he can see right through them. It’s not just you. Lassen is more…interested in the interests of other men.”

The moment Harrison uttered those words, a shudder went up his spine. The interests of other men. Since meeting Gage Lassen, he’d been uncomfortable with the other’s physical closeness, the way he stood just a tad too near, eyes just a tad too heartfelt. True, Harrison was fixated upon the man’s physical presence in a jealous sort of way. He wished his own skin to be that creamy café au lait instead of the blinding white that burned so easily in the sun. And Lassen’s features, so dusky, full, and sensual, not thin and austere as Harrison saw his own face. Yes, that was it. He was merely envious. That was why he tracked the man with his eyes, and felt an ardor spreading through him when they stood close together.

Lola must have perceived his thoughts just then, for she sniffled and asked childishly, “It had occurred to me that perhaps Lassen is…more comfortable around men.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Rivulets of fresh hot water rolled down the exquisitely steamy pubic bone, and when Harrison nimbly unbuttoned the broadfall with the fingers of his other hand, the velvety purplish penis sprang forth into his palm, urging him to murmur, “Now, Mr. Lassen. Now. You want to fuck that wet pussy, don’t you? You want to slide it up inside that beautiful, wanton housemaid of yours. You’ve wanted it for years.” It gave Harrison an odd power he’d never felt before, this “allowing” of their coupling.

“God, yes,” Gage hissed against Lola’s swollen mouth.

“She’s beautiful, is she not? And she’s not ‘sluttish’—she’s only meant for me and for you.”

Lola held Gage’s face in her hands, and when she pulled away to cry earnestly, “Yes, yes, Gage, mount me like an animal. I’m wide open.” That did it. That I’m wide open. Swiveling with a great lunge against Gage’s bare ass, Harrison urged his friend, “Now, now, Gage! She’s waiting for you. She’s yearning for you. You don’t want to let me down, do you? This is your chance, your chance to take the most delicious woman in town. Slide up her, Gage, slide up—”

Gage hardly needed any more persuasion, his penis well-nigh being sucked inside of her, Harrison’s fingers jumping out of the way, it was so swift—there was no need to guide or incite this randy bastard. As Lola’s head lolled to one side on a limp neck and she let loose a satisfied groan that Harrison knew she’d never uttered with him, jealousy again flared in his chest. He could only watch for a few moments, the fleshy, well-formed ass pumping away at his woman, the fascinating sinews of Gage’s muscular back roiling like the eddies of a swollen river, Lola’s toes curling to point at the ceiling, and Harrison had to get another rag of tepid water to furiously bathe those exquisitely broad shoulders.

He used the bar of soap this time and scrubbed savagely, rinsing again to splash more water over the undulating muscles, rapidly moving down the sublime slope of Gage’s lower back to the rise of his ass, where he washed more assiduously, cupping the full balls in one palm. The men sloshed around in probably an inch of water on the floor, the childish shuffling of their feet in tandem with the suctioning slaps of the couple’s fucking. Harrison fondled the balls tenderly with the rag, then tossed that aside to slide the bar of soap between the tempting globes of Gage’s ass.

When Gage moaned and Harrison felt a fine tremor run up the backs of his friend’s legs, he knew it wouldn’t be long until he shot his load, so he lobbed the soap atop the rag and slid one, then two fingers up Gage’s ass. The other hand he pressed to Gage’s steamy pubic bone, just above the root of his slimy prick, to stay him, to slow him down. But his questing fingers had the opposite effect, as Harrison recalled from being fucked so thoroughly on the dusty buffalo robe in the City Hotel. There was a certain spot up there, he thought of it as a sweet spot, where the tip of Gage’s prick had just tickled, and that’s when he’d spewed all over his own belly, embarrassingly. It was probable Gage had the same spot, and Harrison wasn’t going to waste the sensation on his fingers, so he withdrew them.

“Whoa, whoa,” he warned Gage, slapping him on the backside in a bullying manner. A grin burst onto his face as he heard himself scolding, “The terms of your employment mean you ream my woman perfectly, but slowly.”

“You bastard,” Gage snarled, but with a twinge to his voice that told Harrison he recalled his own previous “terms of employment” when he had pinned Harrison to the bed and forcibly kissed him. He did wind down his humping a bit, but this only caused Lola’s eyes to roll even further back into her head, and she mewed.

“No. Not slow. Faster.”

Harrison unsheathed his own penis and grabbed the jar of lard or whatever animal drippings Lola collected from her cooking. He smeared it scrupulously down the length of his penis, but when his thumb rubbed the greasy, delicious stuff over the glans, he nearly lost it. His entire body jerked in a small pre-orgasmic spasm, and he positioned the bulbous head at Gage’s entrance.

“I’ll show you how fast to go,” he instructed, a bit less certain of his command now.

Gage paused in his fucking now. He must have been aware of Harrison’s intentions, and he seemed to tense while Lola whimpered for more. Harrison understood. It had not been very pleasant at first when Gage had fucked him, being unaccustomed to being used in that manner. And his penis wasn’t as narrow as Gage’s. But with short stiff jabs, he slid past the initial tight ring, and he was in the glorious slick ass, as Gage huffed and puffed, releasing the tension.

“This fast,” Harrison said with more assurance as he gripped the sinewy hips. It was glorious to be in charge for once, to be the aggressor, with the arrogant domineering town treasurer speared on his prick like this. He grasped the ass muscles in his splayed palms as he drove into him, unsure at first if he was hurting Gage—Gage’s whimpers were now starting to sound indiscernible from Lola’s. But when Harrison flung one long arm around his chest, drawing his torso up to slap against Harrison’s own chest—sweat, soap, water, and bad wine all comingling into a mélange of liquids between their bodies—Harrison nibbled on his friend’s earlobe, and the sweet man laughed in an exhalation of tension and ecstasy.

“Lord, Harrison,” Gage panted. “You are really…something.”

“Come on!” Lola cried.

The tremors in Gage’s thighs told Harrison that he had nearly reached that sweet spot, so he slapped the torso back down until Gage hunched over Lola again. Gripping the slick shoulders, Harrison humped him with short quick little jabs. His own balls drew up, hard and full against his body. A great surge of rapture threatened to flood up his penis, but he wanted to feel his friend’s release, to tickle the fluttering of that sweet spot inside Gage. Bending at the knees, he swung one long arm down to slather his palm against Gage’s glutted testicles, and that’s when he felt it.